An Illustrated Quarterly
The Savoy An Illustrated Quarterly
Leonard Smithers, 1896.
First edition in book form. Three volumes. 4to. In the original publisher's blue cloth with elaborate gilt decoration designed by Beardsley. Beardsley's illustrated Christmas card laid into the first volume. Cover illustrations to each volume by Aubrey Beardsley, with further illustrations by some of the great artists of the 1890s including James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Walter Sickert. A fine set, much brighter than usually encountered and with only very light signs of wear to the spine ends. The contents of the second and third volumes were misbound by Smithers in this instance, and so issues three to five appear in the third volume, and issues six to eight in the second.
Leonard Smithers, together with Arthur Symons and Aubrey Beardsley, conceived The Savoy as a successor to The Yellow Book which, having spurned Beardsley after its fourth issue due to his connections with Oscar Wilde, had become rather vanilla.
The periodical ran for eight issues between January and December 1896, Beardsley's "Annus Mirabilis" (R. A. Walker), during which short time Beardsley produced some of his finest illustrations, his style having reached maturity. Fulfilling Symons's hope that "good writers and artists will care to see their work in company with the work of good writers and artists", it featured work by Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, Ford Maddox Hueffer, Ernest Dowson, George Bernard Shaw, W. B. Yeats, William Blake, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, W. Rothenstein, Walter Sickert, and James McNeill Whistler.
The periodical, true to its age, had its own tragic fall and was discontinued after the December issue. In the penultimate issue, Symons wrote "I have to announce that with the next number, completing a year's existence, the present issue of 'The Savoy' will come to an end... We therefore retire from the arena, not entirely dissatisfied if not a trifle disappointed, leaving to those who care for it our year's work, which will be presented to you in three volumes, in a cover of Mr Beardsley's designing".
Lasner 103A
Stock ID: 40148
Sold
We have sold this item, but similar items
may become available in the future
